CRO SERB OFFICIALS SPEAK ABOUT ARRESTS OF THREE CRO SERBS

VUKOVAR, Jan 25 (Hina) - Two Croatian Serb officials on Monday issued a letter about the January 23 arrests of three Croatian Serbs from Dalj, eastern Croatia. The arrested Vaso Gavrilovic, born 1934, Vladimir Makivic, born 1935, and Dragoljub Savic, born 1960, from the "Dalj group (...) are not even on the list of 150 (war crimes) suspects (...) nor on the official list of 25 convicted" for war crimes, said the letter signed by the head of the Joint Council of Serb-majority municipalities of eastern Croatia Milos Vojnovic and MP Vojislav Stanimirovic. As far as the two officials know, in making the arrests no request was made for consent from The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Vojnovic and Stanimirovic further said "the highest representatives of Croatian authority have to date on several occasions stated there would be no further criminal persecution and new lists for alleged war crimes without consent from The Hague tribunal." The two Croatian Serb officials reminded such a standpoint had been made by the Croatian President during his visits to Beli Manastir and Vukovar in June 1997. "The stated standpoints are in keeping with (the former) UN transitional administration for eastern Slavonia and the Erdut Agreement's Article 11 Commission," the letter said. (Hina) ha mm